A Start-Up’s Financial Reckoning

The New York Times small business blog today ran a piece about a high tech entrepreneur who recently took her business through a major crash course in course-correction. (You’ll never guess how. Read on.)

“Success came quickly for SolTec Electronics,” begins the piece by Times columnist Adriana Gardella. Created by founder Dawn Gluskin in her living room in 2008, the firm sells hard-to-find circuit board components and solves big companies’ supply-crunch problems.

By the beginning of 2011, Dawn found her company had suffered its first quarterly loss, and could be headed for trouble. She responded with agility and creativity, putting in place a number of fascinating changes, for example, in her financial controls and management.

Here is the change that most caught our eye:

Ms. Gluskin, SolTec’s top revenue generator, said she is trying to “clone” herself. She revamped SolTec’s sales training program and now holds weekly meetings with her sales representatives during which she emphasizes the importance of relationship selling. Recently, she had her sales staff read The Go-Giver, by Bob Burg and John David Mann. “The moral,” she said, “is the more you give, the more sales you’ll get.”

SolTec has many competitors, but Ms. Gluskin said it stands out by emphasizing customer needs. She urges her sales staff to get to know customers on a personal level and help them even when it will not directly benefit SolTec. . .